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Podcast: In Conversation: An OUP Podcast
Episode: Faisal H. Husain, "Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Description: Rivers of the Sultan offers a history of the Ottoman Empire's management of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the early modern period. During the early sixteenth century, a radical political realignment in West Asia placed the reins of the Tigris and Euphrates in the hands of Istanbul. The political unification of the longest rivers in West Asia allowed the Ottoman state to rebalance the natural resource disparity along its eastern frontier. It regularly organized the shipment of grain, metal, and timber from upstream areas of surplus in Anatolia and the Jazira to downstream areas of need in Iraq. This...